


chimera

by courtingkaleidoscopes



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Dark Comedy, Fix-It, Humor, M/M, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, Post-XMFC, everyone is an ass, pre-DOFP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 08:09:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2221791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courtingkaleidoscopes/pseuds/courtingkaleidoscopes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Charles is harassed with various glittery gifts, no one uses doors or doorways correctly, Erik remotely stripteases, and two unyielding personalities slowly bend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chimera

**Author's Note:**

> Entirely First Class canon compliant, taking place a year or so after the movie. Some of what's introduced in the "past" portion of Days of Future Past is also included. 
> 
> Thanks to [megandxb](http://archiveofourown.org/users/megandxb) for beta reading!

There is an enormous gift bow knocking on Charles's bedroom window. It is outrageously glittery, burgundy, and listing dangerously to the left. It seems to be attached to a very nervous green tail.

"Could you let me in?" the bow asks.

"Mmrrrnng," Charles responds through his mouthwash, squinting into the floodlights outside.

"What?"

Charles wheels back into the bathroom and spits into the sink. "It's open," he calls.

"Right, sorry. Should have checked."

The nervous green tail is attached to a nervous green man, who neatly climbs in through the open window.

"The bow’s wet," Charles notes.

"Oh! A sprinkler attacked me on the way here. Sorry about that." He apologetically places the bow in his black hair. The puddle on the floor stops growing.

Charles shrugs. "If you'd used the front door--or any door, really--it wouldn't have caught you." He folds his arms and glares at the man. The effect is slightly dampened as he yawns, skimming the surface of the man’s mind. "Erik sent you. What does he want?"

"Wow, you really are a telepath! Didn't even feel you in there." The man gleefully taps the side of his head with a green finger. "He said I'm supposed to find you as soon as possible. And then he tied this bow on me."

"Does he think I need him to send me mutants? For my school? In my bedroom, at midnight no less? Tell him he can go f--" Charles cuts himself off and glances up sharply, catching the edge of a thought.

"I did find the timing a bit questionable," the man agrees. _Guess it is fairly obvious what I’m supposed to do with the fellow, L3 and L4 completely shattered, poor guy--_

"You're a doctor," Charles states. He is not yawning anymore.

"I sure was," the man says cheerfully. “I’m a healer now. I’m also green now.”

"Oh." Charles's gaze slips sideways. "I suppose you'll be returning to him once you're done with me?"

"Well, no. I'm not really sure who he is, actually. Or where he might be."

"I see." Charles frowns. "So he just...found you, and directed you to my bedroom?"

"He said you'd have a place for me to stay here," the man says hopefully. Very, very hopefully. It’s radiating from him in torrents.

"Not in my bedroom." Charles sighs. "There's a spare room down the hall, fourth on the left. Can we do this in the morning?"

"Sure! I'm Joel, by the way." The man beams blinding happiness. Charles winces a little, and his mind blinks away the residual Joel-shaped white spots.

"Charles." They shake hands. Joel's is horrendously wet. The bow slips from his head onto the floor, but Joel doesn’t appear to notice.

"Don't expect me before 10,” Charles calls as his door shuts.

+++

Around 10:30, Charles opens his bedroom door. Laughter and weekend laziness drift over to him from outside. 

“Good morning!” Joel greets from Charles’s doorway.

Charles looks directly overhead, hopeful and wary. “Morning.”

“So, how are we doing this? In your room? That’s fine, probably for the best, you don’t really need hospital facilities or anything like that.”

“You like my room.” Charles turns and wheels back in. Joel’s anticipation is practically bouncing behind him.

“I do! It’s very...lived in,” he notes. Spying the bow on the floor, he hurriedly goes over to pick it up, and places it carefully on the windowsill. It falls to the floor again as soon as he turns around. “Is this place yours?”

Charles nods, smiling despite himself. Joel’s delight is infectious. “It’s yours too, if you want.”

“Ah, so you’re Xavier! Charles Xavier then.” _That fellow Erik didn’t say the telepath I'd meet would be Charles Xavier himself! In the flesh! I did suspect a little, but this is astounding._

“Who exactly did he tell you to find?”

“A guy in a wheelchair,” Joel admits. _Stubborn British asshole in a wheelchair,_ echoes Erik’s voice in Joel’s memory. “I had to look through a few windows before I found you. Lie down, please. On your front.”

Charles hauls himself back into bed. Joel plants a chair beside him, and places his hands over Charles’s lower back.

_Oh, that’s really extensive. Three surgeries at least. Damn, that’s a lot of metal, it’s going to have to come out._ A vivid, clinical image of something piercing through Charles’s skin from the inside flickers in Joel’s mind. “This may hurt,” he advises. “Do you happen to have some anesth--”

“Just do it.” Charles grits his teeth.

“Okay. Try not to move.” _I guess I can remove the metal first..._ a series of diagrams flash through his mind before Charles can’t read Joel at all.

Ten seconds later there is a slick popping noise, and then a crunch. Charles’s back is maddeningly itchy. He wants to scratch his spine and all the organs in the vicinity. His legs are twisted at a rather strange angle.

Ten minutes later, Joel removes his hands. The itching stops.

“Do you want this? It came out of your back, some people like to keep that sort of thing--”

“Toss it.”

“It is kind of gnarly,” Joel agrees. He aims for the bin by his feet and misses by several inches. He tries again and bumps his head on the bed frame.

“I’ll get it,” Charles intervenes. He maneuvers his legs over the edge of the bed, leaning over to grab the rather disgusting bit of metal rod and staples.  His knee emits a loud pop, and he loses balance.

“Ow,” Charles articulates into the floor.

“You’ll probably need some PT,” Joel notes.

+++

It is extraordinarily difficult to find a physical therapist. Joel is emitting a constant cloud of apology, littered with actual words here and there (“won’t talk to me anymore--don’t know his number--hers neither--disappeared in Siberia” _)_. Charles had stopped paying attention about half an hour ago, tired and still sitting in a blasted wheelchair.

He doesn’t miss the sudden appearance and disappearance of a smoky mind outside his study, nor does he miss the one that lingers just inside.

“Professor Xavier,” the woman calmly enunciates.

“Are doors going out of fashion?” Charles scowls. “And you are?”

“Natasha Romanoff. I was told you’re in need of a physical therapist.” She sets a gift bow--burgundy, sleek, glittering--on his desk.

She is difficult to read--deliberately so. Her mind is careful and controlled, with sharp barbed barriers on all sides. Charles resists the urge to roll his eyes as he slips easily past her defenses and massages them into dust.

“Erik sent you,” Charles sighs. “With a good deal more information than Joel here. And you’re not even a mutant.”

She crosses her arms. “And if I’m not?” _Lehnsherr didn’t say anything about Joel._ Her eyes flick to the green man behind the desk, cataloguing various pressure points on his body and various routes from which he might escape.

“Jesus, he sent me an assassin,” Charles buries his face in his hands.

“I’m your physical therapist,” Natasha says firmly with a sharp edge of threat. “Your legs and I would appreciate it if you didn’t go poking around in my head. Understood?” Her mind fills with a rather bloody image of Charles’s lower body.

“Yeah, all right.” Charles rises to the surface of her mind again.

“Lehnsherr tells me you have a suitable room for this. Where is it?”

Charles thinks for a moment. “Downstairs.”

“We start now.”

In a corner of the gym, Natasha directs Charles with curt commands, her cool attention following his every move. Charles does not speak. He’s too busy forcing his atrophied muscles to take his weight, white knuckled hands sweating against the steel railing along the wall.    

“Don’t lock your knees,” Natasha instructs.

Charles unlocks them and promptly collapses on the cushioned floor, gasping for breath.

_They’ve been gone for a while now I wonder if everything’s all right Charles seems nice I don’t like the way Natasha was looking at him._ Green fingers, tapping nervously on the desk, nervousness that seeps into each action--

With a gargantuan effort, Charles pulls his mind back from its tired sprawl across the whole mansion. It slips a little.

Natasha nods. “We’re done for today.”

He tries to get up again and finds Natasha’s arms around him, easily lifting him into his chair. He slumps into it, sweat dripping down his face and soaking his clothes, legs tingling and hot. The weak thigh muscles jump sporadically.

“That went well,” she allows, satisfaction and a tinge of surprise weaving through the words.

Charles laughs roughly. “I’m sure Erik couldn’t have made a better choice.” Natasha is ruthlessly practical, her clinical thoughts and controlled emotions exerting less of a pressure on his nerves than anyone else he’s met.

“Perhaps not.”

Charles frowns. She is not talking about herself. “Do you know Erik?”

“I’d met him on a few missions before he came to me as a client.” She pauses,cycling through _stubborn angry arrogant vicious offensive fiercely protective_ “He’s strong.”

The elevator doors open. “You fought on the same side?”

A hint of amusement wafts over to Charles. “I wouldn’t be alive if I’d openly opposed him. That distinction belongs to you, don’t you think?”

“He told you that?”

“Lehnsherr doesn’t tell me anything.” _I do my homework._ The elevator pings, and she rolls him out.

“My room’s down the hall.” Charles points.

Natasha leaves him just outside. “I can be here in two days between 2:00 and 5:00, for another hour.”

“Two o’clock is fine.”

She nods once and looks up. “Azazel,” she calls, tensing. Azazel appears, appraises Charles briefly, and then disappears with Natasha.

+++

“Hey, this came for you.” Alex saunters awkwardly into Charles’s study, wielding an enormous plexiglass box. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure.” Charles gestures, and Alex lays it across his desk. Charles flips the clasps.

On a bed of glittering burgundy cloth rests a pair of sleek forearm crutches with matte finish, dark and minimalistic. Beside them is a wooden cane, similarly minimalistic but with a beautiful twist of lines carved down its length. The unibody crutches are clearly custom made, and the cane is likely handcrafted.

Alex lets out a low whistle. “Man, those are sick. I know that new guy Joel’s a healer, but...he really did it, huh? You can walk now?”

“Not quite yet.” Charles runs his fingers along the crutches. Polycarbonate. Plastic. Foam.

“Well, someone loves you.” Alex lifts the glittering cloth. There’s only padding beneath. He frowns. _No note? Nothing when I picked it up at the gate either._

Charles lifts out a bag of attachable tips for the crutches: two pairs, both rubberized on the bottom. One pair is plastic.

The other is brushed steel.

“Oh, shit,” Alex curses, alarm flaring, power thrumming beneath his skin. “No, no, not that fucker. He doesn’t have the _right._ ”

“He’s the one who sent Joel here,” Charles says quietly.

“The hell he did, he’s also the one who sent that bullet into your spine! We could have found Joel ourselves. You could have found him yourself. Hank’s been improving Cerebro, he said you can damn near get to the other side of the world!”

“I know.” Charles hesitates. “I know Erik’s trying--”

“Don’t,” Alex warns. His skin is flashing red in places, hot anger filling the room. He takes a breath. “I’m going out. Don’t make his excuses, man.”

Charles stares at the bag in his hand. He takes out the plastic tips and puts them on.

+++

The next day at 2 PM, Natasha inspects the crutches and tests their strength.

“They’ll suffice.” She hands them back to Charles with satisfaction. “You can try them, work on your balance.”

Charles ends that day covered in bruises, only able to balance on his legs and crutches for a few seconds at a time, but Natasha seems to approve.

+++

A few sessions after that, Natasha is late. There is a cut across her cheek.

“Where’s Azazel? What happened?” Charles asks.

She is particularly unreadable today, and Charles doesn’t really want to dig for the information. “Indisposed,” she says coolly. “Let’s get started.”  Natasha is also particularly brutal today, and after half an hour, he’s in worse shape than he usually is after an entire session.

Charles takes a step, leaning heavily on his crutches.

“A little farther, Charles,” Natasha orders.

Another step. He’s dripping a puddle onto the floor.

“Come on.”

Charles breathes shakily.

“Are you coming?”

“Yeah.” Step.

“Good.”

Charles abruptly falls over. “No, not good,” he gasps.

Natasha bends over him with a sharp edge of concern before she calms again. Ten minutes later, she deposits him in the mansion’s infirmary, and orders him to get better by tomorrow.

“There’s been a change of plans,” Natasha says. “We’ll meet every day. You will walk unassisted by the end of this month.”

Charles is still catching his breath when she leaves. He can feel his control slipping, smothering sharp and aching pain into the walls.

_Joel_.

Not a minute later, a blur of green appears.

“Charles! You need to be more careful. Take it slower, your body doesn’t like what you’re doing to it,” Joel fusses over Charles, bubbling with concern. _Pulled those muscles pretty badly--his tendons my God, that woman really needs to lay off!_

“Well, I have you to fix me up again, don’t I?” Charles smiles what he hopes is a winning smile. Joel’s concern turns to dismay. Charles decides it’s a losing smile.

+++

There’s a knock on the open door. “Professor?”

Charles looks up as if he hadn’t been sleeping at his desk for the past hour. “Hank. What can I do for you?” He straightens his spine. He rolls his shoulders. He puts down his pen. His leg twitches minutely. He tries not to scream.

“You--you have a class.” Hank is fidgeting, nervous and concerned.

“Hmm? Oh, when?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

“Ah.” Charles removes his left arm from the desk. Charles removes his right arm from the desk.

Hank’s concern is growing.

“Just a second.” Charles moves his right arm into a crutch. Then his left arm. Then he turns an inch in his chair. Another inch. He almost completely straightens his legs without breathing. Then his head is on the desk again.

“Professor!”

Charles might be screaming. Maybe Hank is. He’s not sure. His paperwork is starting to look kind of red. Or maybe burgundy. “Do we have any glitter?”

“Oh my god, Professor, your head--”

Charles passes out.

+++

Charles is lying in the infirmary again, giving Joel his best losing smile.

“You’re here every day, Charles.” Joel places his hands over Charles and his entire body heats, itches, and calms down. “Can you tell Natasha to go slower? This isn’t good.”

“I’m making progress. I’m all right at walking with the crutches now.”

“But you’re wrecking your health,” Joel’s frustration is palpable. “Please be careful.”

Charles closes his eyes. “Have you seen the news lately? They think there’s a serial arsonist on the loose. Bizarre fires in houses skewered with twisted metal. There haven’t been any reported fatalities yet, but….”

Joel is quiet beside him, his anxiety a constant thrum in the background.

“Natasha started coming by herself. Azazel hasn’t showed up since half a month ago.” Something is happening, and Erik is trying to help Charles. Natasha is trying to--was told to--get him mobile within the month.

“Please be careful,” Joel repeats.

+++

Charles leans heavily on his crutches, making the slow trek down the hall back to his room. He’s gotten rid of the wheelchair by now, and he is followed by bursts of awe wherever he goes in the mansion.

Well, with one exception: Alex had taken one look and glanced away, jaw tightening and anger flaring. _Could have bought better ones himself, and he chooses to use the ones that dick gave him. Just watch, there’s probably a bomb inside._

Charles sighed inaudibly. _No bombs. No metal either. And the grips are terribly comfortable._

Alex left the kitchen with a flicker of irritation and a _too fucking trusting._

Charles isn’t, of course; that Alex should think so after Cuba stung a little. Charles had thoroughly inspected the crutches, cane, box, everything that came in since the night Joel had arrived, and found a glaring absence of threats. Even the glitter on those ridiculous burgundy bows was nonmetallic.

Erik must be keeping tabs on Charles in some way besides Natasha--how had he known to send an assassin-cum-physical therapist in the first place? Phone lines, possibly. Or the telepath, Emma Frost--though she doesn’t have Cerebro to help her range, so if she were here, she would need to be close. He’d been watching for the last week, curling his mind fully around the mansion’s grounds, and found nothing.

He tried using Cerebro, as soon as Hank had finished the adjustments, feeling for Emma. Although Cerebro could now extend his range around the entire globe, he couldn’t find her. He couldn't find Azazel either. Nor could he find Erik.

Of course not. Charles wouldn’t be surprised if those blasted helmets were standard issue for the Brotherhood. He did find Raven--a faint trace of her, before he had to look away. She would never stoop to wear anything so gauche. The old ache had begun to bubble up, and he shut it firmly away. Raven made her choice. He wouldn't hold it against her. Erik was the one who'd started this whole bloody debacle. Erik was the one who'd slowly worked his poison on Charles's little sister.

The bed takes his heavy fall with a faint creak. Charles’s body is one massive ache, and he’s sweating through the back of his shirt, probably into the sheets. But he’s gotten used to it, so he keeps a towel on his nightstand. He reaches over the obscuring burgundy ribbon and takes a handful of pills to his brow.

His nightstand has been displaced by a wooden box of similar size filled with small, round pills and topped by another atrocious, glittering gift bow. On the side of the box facing him, Erik has attached a note in his impeccable handwriting.

_Twice daily with meals._

Charles expels a breath at the ceiling. "Sure! Sure Erik, two a day for the next two hundred years of my life,” he says reasonably.

The ceiling stares unreasonably back. Charles considers changing bedrooms.

+++

"Painkillers," Charles says flatly, putting his sandwich down.

"I think." Hank adjusts his glasses apologetically. "I did some basic analysis, but I'm not a chemist."

"So I have a box full of unmarked ibuprofen."

"No, no. This is...this is more complex than that."

"Of course it would be," Charles mutters, scowling at the innocuous pill on the kitchen table.

"I wouldn't take them if I were you," Hank warns.

Charles looks up sharply. "Why? What's wrong with them?"

"Well, I...I didn't find anything alarming, but. They're from him, aren't they?"

"There's no reason to think he means to kill me." Charles takes a sip of water. "I probably would do better with some opiates in my system--or whatever this is."

"You'd also do better without Erik's drill sergeant driving you into the ground." Alex strolls into the kitchen and pulls open the fridge.

"Alex," Charles protests.

Hank shoots Alex a warning look, and Alex takes a deep breath, pouring his orange juice and controlling his outrage.

“Look, man. I don’t know--and I don’t want to know--exactly what was going on between you two. But I know you trusted him-- _trusted_ him--and then he put a bullet in your back, left us on a beach with no transport and fifty ships that had just fired missiles at us. Stop taking his shit.” Alex takes an angry swig of his orange juice, and leaves the kitchen.

After a beat, Hank speaks. “What exactly does he want from you?”

Charles doesn’t know. He leaves the pill on the table.

+++

Charles isn’t physically wrecked and mentally restless enough to take one until 3 AM, a few nights later. The note reads _with meals,_ so he drags his legs back to the kitchen, grabs the first bag in the pantry, and slumps into a chair. He’s never particularly liked shredded coconut, but he eats a macaroon anyway, and swallows a pill with it.

For a moment, Charles ponders this latest adventure in his string of Erik-induced poor decision-making. The entire house is asleep, with the exception of Alex, who’s outside and obliterating the surrounding forest in patches. He could twitch his merry way to death on the floor, foaming at the mouth, and no one would be the wiser for at least three hours.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to get himself a little closer to the infirmary. He rises, slipping his arms through the crutches, and walks halfway down the hall before he realizes that the pain is entirely gone. The surprise hits him mid-stride, and he lingers there a little too long; he topples forward, barely catching himself and slamming against the wall. The pain starts, flaring from his shoulder outwards into--

\--nothing. Interesting.

Charles takes a quick mental and physical inventory, poking and prodding and pinching in various places. Everything appears to be in working order, and he can feel light, firm, and even painful sensations. But at a certain point past his pain threshold, physical sensations completely fail to register. He briefly wonders if the same applies to mental stimulation, but doesn’t feel a particularly strong inclination to test it.

+++

“It’s looking pretty bad out there,” Hank observes. The rain is spattering down the window of the lab in torrents.

“Ororo is improving,” Charles agrees. Her powers hadn’t strengthened in the two weeks that she’d been here, but Charles had been able to teach her better control so that half the grounds no longer suffer from ice damage. He’d gone to see her with Hank in the new jet. Although Charles certainly doesn’t regret bringing her to Westchester, Erik’s absence during the journey had felt like a phantom limb, not unlike the days immediately after Cuba.

Charles flicks open the morning paper, scanning through the headlines. Communism, scandal, editorial, communism--nothing he couldn’t have guessed.

_‘Hellfire Arsonist Strikes Miami’_ catches Charles’s eye. He frowns. The last attacks occurred in the northeast. Perhaps a copycat had emerged in Florida, and the reporters were simply mistaken.

“I read that one,” Hank comments, taking a sip of coffee before going back to work on the open panel. The wiry entrails of Cerebro spill out, twisted and colorful.

"What did you think?" Charles leans away from his spot on the railing and onto his cane, making his way towards Hank.

"I'm...I'm not sure what to think," Hank admits. "I'd say it's him, for sure. No one else we know can rip apart the rebar while leaving the rest of the highway approximately intact. It's a little different from the previous hits, though."

Charles nods. "Fifteen injuries, one near fatality reported." He points to the picture included, a gaping maw of twisted, fractured steel. "And this, reaching over the edge. It's like he was trying to capture someone falling off, but then it just...dissolves."

Hank glances at the photo for half a second before turning back to his panel. "You haven't received any other--" _ridiculous and invasive 'presents', in any other situation this would be enough for a restraining order_ "--correspondence from him, have you?"

Charles shakes his head, trying to rid it of Hank's sudden burst of vitriol. He can't help the wry smile on his lips, though. "Nothing." 

Hank twists a piece of wire more firmly than necessary. "Can you let me know if you do?"

"Of course, Hank," Charles says softly. He folds the paper again and reaches out with his cane just as Hank takes a sip from his mug. Hank's elbow jolts in the wrong direction, and the coffee sloshes over the rim into the exposed panel.

"Oh, sh--" Hank puts the coffee down and falls into a squat, inspecting the damage. He's mentally emitting a steady stream of silent curses, lips pursed into a mildly blue line.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry." Charles hurries to the other end of the lab, grabs a towel, and flings it over. Hank catches it without looking."I didn't mean to, is it--"

"No, no, it's not your fault." Hank grimaces, mopping up the excess coffee pooling on the bottom. "I shouldn't have been drinking that in here. Looks like we won't be using Cerebro for..." _weeks? Months? I don't even know if I can find another one of these._

_We'll fix it._ Charles forces confidence, pulling it over Hank's growing frustration.

+++

They still haven't fixed it by the time another package arrives on his desk. Natasha delivers this one personally, her mind an icy pool of silence, and then leaves without a word.

Outside, Charles has paused mid sentence. Ororo is staring expectantly at him, her small cumulus cloud overhead thickening slightly in displeasure.

"Sorry darling, I have to go. You're doing great--I'll call Alex over, so you can practice together. He's improved his control a good deal over the past couple of years, so ask him whatever you'd like." Charles sends a mental ping to Alex and retreats to his office with a brief mental wave of assurance before Alex has a chance to ask.

There's no bow on the lockbox--if it can even be called that. The metal of the box is marbled and contorted in a corner, as if it were damaged and then hastily repaired using a different source of metal. The padlock is twisted into a solid lump and fused into the body of the box; it would be far easier to disassemble the hinges.

Fortunately the hinges are loose, and Charles pries them apart with a cheap ballpoint.

He stares at the helmet inside for one long, breathless second before falling into his chair.

The burgundy helmet is gouged completely through on one side, glistening with blood and glittering flakes of the damaged metal. There's a smear near the end of the scratch, the result of a hurried wipe down.

Charles flings open his mind, throwing himself as far as he can stretch. Hank is still trying to ( _damn it any other part would have been replaceable_ ) fix Cerebro. Alex and Ororo are training outside ("Alex, you're silly. Why would I want it to rain indoors?"). Joel is clipping the hedges ( _they grow faster every day I definitely did these yesterday_ ), a jogger in Central Park is supremely irritated at a small barking dog, a child in Jersey is eating a vibrantly bland crayon--

Charles can't stretch any farther and jerks outward desperately--there's a painful snap, and he's thrown back into the mansion. He gags, gasping for breath, forcing sweaty hands to unclench from the edges of his desk.

He can't find Erik.

With shaking fingers, he reaches out to touch the helmet. The blood is slick, and a few shavings of the helmet's metal come off in the whorls of his fingertips. There are a limited number of ways in which Erik could have left Charles's range with the blood still this fresh. But maybe...maybe there's another reason Charles can't sense him.

Abruptly, he lurches over the side of his desk and vomits into the bin.

"Professor!" Hank has run into the office. "What happened? There was--what did you--oh shit, are you okay?"

"Fine," Charles rasps reflexively, before heaving again. A cloth is thrust into his hand, and he  roughly wipes his mouth. "I think I pulled something."

Hank's worry pulses in dizzyingly detailed waves of _shit that's Erik's helmet what the hell did he do_ , and Charles is definitely choking his stomach out through his throat now.

_Leave,_ he pushes, and Hank is half out of the door before he's even done thinking it. He probably pushed a little too forcefully, but he can barely distinguish his own thoughts from the mess of everyone else's.

It's a good hour or so before his mind struggles into some semblance of stability and his body slumps back in his chair. With gargantuan effort, he pulls himself back into the confines of his study.

The helmet is still sitting before him in its skewed box. He briefly notes that the pills don't work against mental pain as he falls unconscious.

+++

Recovery is a slow process, and no one even comes close to Charles. They skirt him in the halls and on the grounds--it's not difficult to avoid such an oppressive, sprawling mental presence. They don't understand, and he tells himself it doesn't bother him. Charles has a lot of time to think.

There are a few possibilities. Firstly, Erik could have been out of range--Azazel could have transported him away. But Erik had obviously been injured and probably under attack. It seems strange that Azazel would have waited for Erik to send off his helmet, especially with Natasha. She hasn't visited since that day, and Charles hadn't seen Azazel since Natasha showed up late.

Secondly, Erik could have been pulling his suicidal determination bullshit again. He could have obtained the injury, fought stupidly through it, and then decided to send his helmet off with Natasha before passing out. But why send it to Charles? If he were to take a maudlin stab, he might guess that Erik was gifting Charles his mind. Charles scoffs out loud. That might have been accurate if Charles had been able to actually sense any of Erik's mind afterwards. It's likely the helmet doesn't even work properly now that it's sporting an open gash in the side. In fact, it is more likely that Erik sent it to Charles for safekeeping until he had a chance to repair it properly, since he ran his Brotherhood on fear and respect, not trust. Considering how hurriedly and how tightly the lock was sealed, he probably hadn't even expected Charles to open it.

Thirdly.... Charles closes his eyes, jaw flexing. He doesn't want to think about it, and refuses to think about why.

Instead, he reads the paper. After months of hints and whispers, the Hellfire Arsonist dominates front pages in blazing capitals. This time the destruction spans the city of New Orleans, submerging the entirety of its charred, twisted carcass in sea once the dam was ripped apart. A surprising number of people were able to escape, but Charles has to extrapolate this; the papers are only interested in reporting the hundreds of injuries and casualties. The death toll is horrifying. Charles hates the twinge of relief in the back of his mind.

"These came for you," Alex intonates.

Charles looks up from his thoughts and into a faceful of burgundy cloth. It smells like ash and steel and--

"Your long distance boyfriend," the cape slides to the floor and a pair of gauntlets impact Charles's shoulder, "is giving you a long distance striptease."

"Alex, is this really--" A panel of irritated burgundy chest armor interrupts him. Actually, the irritation and accompanying dose of ire probably belong to Alex.

It's a very heavy dose of ire. Perhaps he has more ire than armor to throw. "I'm going to rate this a solid 3/10. It's not as attractive as it really should be, I think he's missing the point. And the cape is tacky as hell. But the armor, and hopefully whichever asshole was inside, has had three points' worth of shit beaten out of it."

Alex hurls the last item, a shoe _(oh I'm Mag-fucking-neto, I need mag-fucking-netic shoes, so I can loom over everyone like the mag-fucking-nificent prick I am)_ into Charles's filing cabinet, where it sticks.

"He's not my boyfriend," Charles halfheartedly mutters at Alex's angrily retreating back, and pulls a gauntlet out of his curtains.

It does look battered, but like Alex said, it's only about 30% damaged. None of the dents or scratches on the armor are as bad as the one on the helmet, and a small knot in Charles's chest eases. It's looking more likely that Charles is being used for safekeeping, but he’s not sure why.

+++

News of the Hellfire Arsonist dies down once everyone realizes that, despite the catastrophic events, there is an unbelievably thorough lack of identifying evidence.

It stops mattering anyway; President Kennedy is shot, and the nation is in uproar. Perhaps, some say, it was the Hellfire Arsonist. It isn't clear why they think so, but it probably isn't because _'two witnesses claim the bullet's trajectory curved.'_

"--the hell is this Oswald guy? Does he know what's going on?" Alex jabs a finger at the black and white mug shot. The paper sizzles a little.

"Killing the bloody _president_ , what kind of a stunt is he trying to pull? What happens when everyone finds out a mutant is behind a presidential assassination? Good God, Erik!"

"Who knows? Setting fires and stalking you, I would have thought his plate was full enough."

But it's more than that. Erik nurtured and took advantage of Charles's ill-advised lingering sentiment so that he could keep his armor and helmet with Charles--the very helmet that he used to block Charles out, now only removed because it was damaged. And for what? So that he might retrieve it after he burns down a few cities--with no explanation--and murders the president?

So, when Charles learns of the new prisoner kept under maximum security in the Pentagon, he agrees with Alex and does nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a comment below or grouse at me on tumblr ([courtingkaleidoscopes](http://courtingkaleidoscopes.tumblr.com/)).


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